Do a reality check on job choice

JOYCE LAIN KENNEDY CAREERS NOW

Dear Joyce : I am thinking about becoming a pharmacist but am not certain what's really involved and whether I would like it. Can you give me some advice?

Here are five free or low-cost tips to avoid making costly mistakes in any career decision, using pharmacist as an example.

Read: Read about pharmacists, what they do, the training required, what they earn and how rosy the future looks for them. A top resource describing hundreds of careers: the Occupational Outlook Handbook. Read it free online at www.bls.gov/oco.

Also visit the bookstore for a new and valuable book, The Career Chronicles: An Insider's Guide to What Jobs Are Really Like - the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly from Over 750 Professionals by Michael Gregory (New World Library).

Interview. Check with at least a half-dozen pharmacists in various pharmacy workplaces, from retail stores to hospitals.

S hadow. Ask your school counselor to arrange a "shadowing" day where you observe pharmacists at work.

Work. Get a job as a pharmacy technician (learn on the job) for a few months to try out your fit in the environment.

Cross-check. Go to the ONet Code Connector at www.onetcodeconnector.org to see the skills required for occupations that interest you. The skills are called "Detailed Work Activities." This is a free and fascinating career-choice tool maintained by the Department of Labor.

Dear Joyce: Despite the big jump in the U.S. unemployment rate to 5.5 percent, I'm still reading about the so-called war for talent. How's that? What's going on with this doublespeak?

Work-force insiders theorize that (a) the jobless rate spike primarily reflects workers with less-desirable skills, and that some employers find that their tough talent hunts for high-skill, high-value employees are not getting any easier; (b) that a limited transfer of knowledge between older and younger generations contributes to a talent shortage for U.S. businesses; and (c) the retirement of Baby Boomers is creating a talent shortage.

If you have more than a passing interest in jobs and careers for American workers, you may want to learn how to start an "academy" at your local high school. Whether tech prep or college prep, the National Academy Foundation creates small learning communities, called academies, within high schools. Thus far, the academies focus on one of four career fields: finance, hospitality and tourism, information technology and engineering.

The foundation works with local employers to provide courses that supplement the traditional curriculum and to offer paid internships that give students a chance to apply their classroom learning to a work setting. The program has impressive outcome statistics and could be a self-enlightened and rewarding effort for a civic group to undertake. Find the foundation online at www.naf.org.